William Barak (c.1823–1903)
William Barak: the Wurundjeri Ngurungaeta who witnessed the Batman Treaty as a boy and led 22 men on foot to Parliament House to save Coranderrk
In 1835, as a boy of about twelve, he watched John Batman meet with Wurundjeri elders including his uncle Billibellary to negotiate what Batman called a treaty: 500,000 acres of Wurundjeri land exchanged for blankets, axes, knives, scissors, mirrors, handkerchiefs, flour and shirts. The elders had not understood themselves to be transferring ownership, only granting permission to stay. The British colonial government declared the treaty invalid regardless. It set the tone for everything that followed. Born in September 1823 at Brushy Creek near present-day Wonga Park, Victoria, his name was Beruk. He became William Barak in 1844 when he joined the Native Mounted Police, a skilled tracker whose knowledge of country was called upon throughout his life, including on the occasion he helped locate Ned Kelly and his gang hiding in thick scrub. He died at Coranderrk on 15 August 1903.
William Barak, corroboree paintings
In 1863 Barak and his cousin Simon Wonga established Coranderrk Aboriginal Station near Healesville, which grew into a self-sufficient farming community producing wheat, vegetables and crafts. When Wonga died in 1874 Barak became Ngurungaeta, the traditional headman of the Wurundjeri-willam clan. The position came at a crisis point: the Board for the Protection of Aborigines was under pressure to close the reserve and disperse its residents to a remote location on the Murray River. In 1881 Barak led 22 men on the 60km walk from Coranderrk to Parliament House in Melbourne to demand the inquiry that followed. The Parliamentary Inquiry into Coranderrk was the first official commission in Victoria created to address Aboriginal calls for self-determination. It lasted two and a half months. In 1884 its recommendations were implemented and Coranderrk was gazetted as a permanent reserve, revocable only by an act of Parliament.
Because traditional ceremonies were officially forbidden at Coranderrk, Barak began recording them in drawings: an act of cultural preservation and defiance. Over his lifetime he created more than fifty works in charcoal, ochre and watercolour, depicting corroborees, ceremonies, and Wurundjeri people in possum-skin cloaks. The drawings illustrated stories he had also recounted to anthropologist A.W. Howitt, who quoted him at least thirty-five times in The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904). Barak's drawings were sold as souvenirs to tourists visiting Coranderrk, and European museums began acquiring them in the late nineteenth century. Wurundjeri elder Aunty Joy Wandin Murphy has said of the works: he wanted people to remember the ceremonies, "so that if he painted them, people would always know about the ceremonies on Coranderrk and of Wurundjeri people." His work is held at the NGV (permanent display at the Ian Potter Centre, Federation Square), NGA, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Koorie Heritage Trust, AGSA and in international collections. A William Barak bridge opened in Melbourne in 2006, and his image appears on a building in the city's north.
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Recommended viewing: SBS First Australians, Episode 3: Freedom For Our Lifetime
